5.  The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
6.  The applicants are:
1)  Ms Aset Alikovna Sangariyeva, who was born in 1974;
2)  Mr Abubakar Khamidovich (also spelled Khamitovich) Gaytayev, who was born in 1971;
3)  Mr Adam Khamidovich (also spelled Khamitovich) Gaytayev, who was born in 1977;
4)  Mr Israil Khamitovich Gaytayev, who was born in 1964;
5)  Ms Khaza Gaytayeva, who was born in 1939;
6)  Mr Mansur Musayevich Gaytayev, who was born in 1995;
7)  Mr Muslim Musayevich Gaytayev, who was born in 1997;
8)  Ms Makka Musayevna Gaytayeva, who was born in 2001;
9)  Ms Roza Musayevna Sangariyeva, who was born in 2003.
7.  The first applicant was married to Mr Musa Gaytayev, who was born in 1972. The fifth applicant is the mother of Musa Gaytayev and of the second, third and fourth applicants. The first applicant and Musa Gaytayev are the parents of the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth applicants.
8.  In 1999-2000 Musa Gaytayev worked as an ambulance driver for a state hospital and the Red Cross in Alkhan-Kala, Chechnya. In 2000 he was arrested in company with all the medical personnel of the Red Cross working in Alkhan-Kala. Between April and June 2000 he was detained in Chernokozovo and other detention facilities. At some point he was released on the basis of an amnesty law but was not given his identity papers back.
9.  At the material time Musa Gaytayev lived with his family in a house which was a part of the family household located at 11 Svobody Street in the village of Martan-Chu, Urus-Martan District in the Chechen Republic. He worked as a carpenter in a construction yard run by the fourth applicant. By 2003 he was due to be issued with new identity papers by the local department of the interior.
10.  On the night of 23 to 24 January 2003 the applicants and Musa Gaytayev were sleeping at home. At about 2 a.m. around twenty men parked two “Ural” trucks about 150 metres away and came to the house on foot. They were all in camouflage uniform and some were also wearing balaclava masks; they were armed with machine guns. The applicants inferred that the men belonged to the Russian military. The servicemen knocked at the door and demanded access to carry out a check. As soon as the applicants opened the door, the men rushed into the rooms without identifying themselves or giving any explanations and forced all the adult male members of the Gaytayev household outside, into the courtyard. The second applicant was ordered to lean against the wall while standing barefoot in the snow; the third applicant was told to lie down. Their documents were checked; some of them were seized, including the identity papers of the second and third applicants and their vehicle documents. At the same time the servicemen apprehended Musa Gaytayev and, pushing his relatives aside, took him away. He was barefoot, wearing a leather jacket and sports trousers. When the servicemen were leaving, the third applicant asked them to give his documents back, but was hit with the butt of a gun for his pains.
11.  On the same night another of the applicants’ relatives, Magomed Gaytayev, a cousin of Musa Gaytayev, was also apprehended. At the material time he worked as a police officer in Gudermes and was in possession of a duty pistol and a machine gun. Although he produced an official authorisation for the weapons to the servicemen, they seized both the pistol and the machine gun.
12.  The fourth applicant, who slept in the building across the courtyard, rushed out on hearing the noise to see what was happening, just in time to see the servicemen loading Musa Gaytayev into one of the trucks. He also saw their cousin, Magomed Gaytayev, being loaded into another truck. The fourth applicant ran after the trucks for some distance and saw them leaving in the direction of Urus-Martan and passing the military checkpoint without being stopped. The checkpoint was located about 500 metres from the applicants’ house and the fourth applicant could see the lights of torches used by the servicemen on duty at the check-point.
13.  Magomed Gaytayev was released the same day, and gave the applicants the following account of his and Musa Gaytayev’s arrest. The two men had been blindfolded by sacks pulled over their heads and loaded into separate trucks. When they stopped he had been pulled down from the truck and the sack had fallen from his head. At that point he had recognised the premises of the Urus-Martan military commander’s office. He, but not Musa Gaytayev, had been put back into one the trucks and taken towards the village of Gekhi in Urus-Martan District. On a country road strong alcohol had been forced down his throat and he had been left on the side of the road. He had returned home in the morning of 24 January 2003 under the influence of alcohol, his face bruised from having been hit with a machine-gun butt. After the events of that night Magomed Gaytayev had for safety reasons moved from his home to his office in Gudermes and had been living there since. On an unspecified date servicemen of the Urus-Martan district department of the interior (“the ROVD”) had returned his duty pistol.
14.  Musa Gaytayev has been missing since his apprehension on the night of 23-24 January 2003.
15.  The Government submitted that the Prosecutor General’s Office had established that at about 2 a.m. on 24 January 2003 unidentified persons had kidnapped Musa Gaytayev in the village of Martan-Chu, Urus-Martan District in the Chechen Republic, and that his whereabouts had not been established.
16.  In the morning of 24 January 2003 the fourth applicant went to the local police station, the local administration, the prosecutor’s office and the military commander’s office to enquire about his brother. However, no officials acknowledged detaining or holding Musa Gaytayev, and no information was provided on his whereabouts and fate.
17.  The applicants also wrote numerous letters to various State officials, copies of which, together with the replies from official bodies, have been provided to the Court. Their submissions concerning the search for Musa Gaytayev may be summarised as follows.
18.  On 24 January 2003 the fourth applicant in person filed written complaints with the prosecutor’s office of the Urus-Martan District (“the district prosecutor’s office”) and the ROVD. He complained about Musa Gaytayev’s abduction and requested that his whereabouts be established and the persons responsible for his detention identified.
19.  On 28 January 2003 the fifth applicant made a like complaint to the district prosecutor’s office.
20.  On 29 January 2003 the first applicant also complained to the district prosecutor’s office about the incident.
21.  On an unspecified date the fifth applicant wrote to the Special Envoy of the Russian President for Rights and Freedoms in Chechnya complaining about the forced disappearance of her son. On 12 February 2003 her letter was forwarded to the district prosecutor’s office for action.
22.  On 14 February 2003 the district prosecutor’s office informed the fifth applicant of the institution of criminal proceedings in respect of the kidnapping of Musa Gaytayev.
23.  On 16 February 2003 the first applicant was granted victim status in the proceedings.
24.  On 1 April 2003 the first applicant filed requests with the district prosecutor’s office, the Urus-Martan military commander’s office and the head of the ROVD. She repeated the complaints about the forced disappearance of her husband and requested an effective investigation into the incident.
25.  On 16 April 2003 the district prosecutor’s office informed the first applicant that the investigation into Musa Gaytayev’s kidnapping had been suspended on 14 April 2003.
26.  On 4 June 2003 the SRJI on behalf of the applicants requested the district prosecutor’s office to update them on progress in the investigation. No reply was received.
27.  On 13 July 2003 the Department of the Federal Security Service (“the FSB”) for the Chechen Republic informed the first applicant that the FSB had had no information on her husband’s whereabouts. It stated that no arrest warrant had been issued against him and he was not suspected of any unlawful activities; her letter had been forwarded to the military prosecutor of the United Group Alignment for the Northern Caucasus.
28.  On 28 July 2003 the first applicant complained to the Prosecutor’s Office of the Chechen Republic of the failure on the part of the district prosecutor’s office to conduct an effective investigation. She requested that the criminal proceedings be resumed and measures taken to establish the whereabouts of Musa Gaytayev and to find those responsible for his kidnapping. She also requested that, if necessary, the case be transferred to a military prosecutor’s office for further investigation.
29.  On 2 September 2003 the SRJI on behalf of the applicants wrote to the district prosecutor’s office requesting an update on the criminal proceedings and putting specific questions about the measures taken to investigate the kidnapping. In particular, they asked whether any of the eye-witnesses to Musa Gaytayev’s abduction had been questioned, such as family members, neighbours or fellow villagers; whether any servicemen of the Urus-Martan military commander’s office had been questioned; and whether any servicemen on duty at the checkpoint between Martan-Chu and Urus-Martan on the night of 23 to 24 January 2003 had been questioned. No reply was received to that letter.
30.  On 5 September 2003 the military prosecutor’s office of military unit no. 20102 informed the first applicant that further to her request a number of enquiries concerning the security raids of 23 to 24 January 2003 had been sent to the official “power structures” (силовые структуры) of the Urus-Martan District. She was informed that Musa Gaytayev had not been arrested during those raids and that the involvement of the federal servicemen in the kidnapping of her husband had not been confirmed. Her request was forwarded to the Urus-Martan military commander’s office.
31.  On 22 June 2005 the SRJI on behalf of the first applicant requested the district prosecutor’s office to update them on progress in the investigation. On 8 July 2005 the district prosecutor’s office replied that investigative measures were being taken to solve the crime.
32.  On 13 February 2003 the district prosecutor’s office opened criminal investigation file no. 34018 into the kidnapping of Musa Gaytayev under Article 126 § 2 of the Russian Criminal Code (aggravated kidnapping).
33.  On 16 February 2003 the first applicant was granted victim status. She was repeatedly questioned and stated that on the night of 23 to 24 January 2003 unknown masked persons armed with machine guns had entered her family home, kidnapped Musa Gaytayev and taken his brothers’ documents. She had also seen Magomed Gaytayev being taken away.
34.  On 18 February 2003 the second, third and fifth applicants were also questioned and made statements similar to that of the first applicant.
35.  On 18 February 2003 the district prosecutor’s office questioned Magomed Gaytayev, who stated that at about 2 a.m. on 24 January 2003 armed and masked men wearing camouflage uniforms with no insignia had burst into his house and ordered him to lie down on the floor. They had taken his duty pistol and machine gun, told him to get dressed, put a hood over his head and placed him in a vehicle. After a ten-minute ride they had put him face down on the ground, tied his arms behind his back with a piece of wire and left. He did not know the men’s identities.
36.  The fourth applicant and Musa Gaytayev’s father were also questioned and had made statements identical to those mentioned above.
37.  In order to verify the hypothesis of the involvement of the security forces in the kidnapping, the district prosecutor’s office repeatedly requested information from State agencies and took other investigative measures to solve the crime.
38.  The head of the Urus-Martan District Department of the FSB informed the district prosecutor’s office on 18 February 2004 that his subordinates had not apprehended Musa Gaytayev and that no criminal proceedings had been instituted against him.
39.  The Urus-Martan military commander’s office, the heads of district departments of the interior and various prosecutors’ offices replied to the queries of the district prosecutor’s office that no special operation had been carried out in respect of Musa Gaytayev, that the latter had not been apprehended by servicemen from their agencies or held in any temporary detention facility.
40.  In the course of the investigation it was established that the law-enforcement agencies of the Chechen Republic had not instituted any criminal proceedings against Musa Gaytayev. His abductors had not been identified and the hypothesis of the involvement of special forces was not proved.
41.  On 14 April 2003 the district prosecutor’s office suspended the investigation for failure to identify those responsible.
42.  On 25 April 2005 the district prosecutor’s office quashed the decision of 14 April 2003 and resumed the investigation. On 26 April 2005 they notified the first applicant accordingly.
43.  The investigation in case no. 34018 was several times suspended for failure to identify those responsible and then resumed. The first applicant was promptly informed of all decisions.
44.  On 21 July 2006 the investigation was once again resumed. It was being supervised by the Prosecutor General’s Office.
45.  Despite specific requests by the Court the Government did not disclose most of the contents of criminal case no. 34018, providing only copies of decisions to suspend and resume the investigation and to grant victim status, and of several notifications to the relatives of the suspension and resumption of the proceedings. Relying on information obtained from the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Government stated that the investigation was in progress and that disclosure of the documents would be in violation of Article 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, since the file contained information of a military nature and personal data concerning the witnesses or other participants in the criminal proceedings.
46.  On 15 February 2005 the SRJI complained on behalf of the first applicant to the Urus-Martan Town Court (“the town court”) of the investigators’ failure to carry out an effective investigation into Musa Gaytayev’s disappearance. In particular, it was submitted that the district prosecutor’s office had not questioned all members of the Gaytayev family and their neighbours; or questioned servicemen of the Urus-Martan military commander’s office and servicemen on duty at the check-point on the night of the abduction. Furthermore, the district prosecutor’s office had not updated the first applicant on progress in the investigation. The town court was also requested to take measures to ensure the safety of the Gaytayev family.
47.  On 25 March 2005 the town court found that the district prosecutor’s office had not taken all requisite investigative measures to solve the crime. It upheld the first applicant’s complaint regarding the effectiveness of the investigation and ordered the district prosecutor’s office to carry out a comprehensive investigation in criminal case no. 34018. It dismissed the request to ensure the Gaytayevs’ safety as unsubstantiated.